Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 149510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
The hallway is dark as we pass the man at the door and proceed inside, and a dingy, metallic smell settles inside my nose. There’s a dull roar of noise up ahead, but no light whatsoever that I can see.
Ace turns the knob to open the solitary door at the end of the hall, and a room full of paint and supplies illuminates. A single bulb is hanging from the ceiling on a small chain, and the sound of something even louder comes through the door on the other side. Ace tries the knob for that door but finds it locked. After a small shrug of anticipation, he does the special knock again, and the door swings open.
Scottie navigates through the piles of paint cans, and I follow behind to bring up the rear.
A girl with long blond hair and startlingly pretty blue eyes stands just inside, a clipboard in her hand and a scowl on her face. She looks a few years older than us and carries the kind of confidence that makes you feel like she’s in charge.
“You’re on my shit list, Ace,” she says in greeting, and immediately, Blake smiles back at me with wild eyes.
“Hey, Lex. Good to see you,” Ace replies, his posture relaxed now that we’ve successfully made it inside.
Her eyes are hard but beautiful as she glances behind Ace and Julia to Blake, Scottie, and me. “I see you took it upon yourself to just…invite people.”
“They’re trustworthy. I swear. Signed a blood contract and everything before I brought them.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fucking hell, you’re always a thorn in my side.” She turns to Julia. “And, you. You should know better than this.”
“Sorry, Lex.” Julia is sheepish but not actually scared. It’s obvious both Ace and Julia know “Lex” in some other capacity than whatever tonight is.
She grabs her clipboard and unlocks the pen from the top of it. “What are their names? I need them.”
Ace points back at me. “Finn Hayes. And in front of him, Scottie Bardeaux.”
Blake takes it upon himself to step up and hold out a hand toward Lex like a true gentleman. “I’m Blake Boden.”
She glances down at his hand and then back up at his face before averting her attention away from him entirely and speaking to everyone. “You have to sign an NDA. Give fingerprints. And if any of you talk about Double C to anyone, I’ll make sure they never find your bodies.”
“You gonna murder us, Lex? Won’t that make the family cookouts a little awkward?” Ace teases, and she glares at him. He holds up both hands. “Got it. First rule of Double C is don’t talk about Double C.”
She pulls out a cell phone and opens an app, flipping over Ace’s hand and scanning his fucking fingerprint. His eyes go wide as she shows it to him.
“I can put this anywhere I want if I need to. Understand me?”
Holy shit, who is this girl?
Ace nods, a dutiful puppy on the leash of his owner. Still, he’s also him, so he has a comment.
“Did you rob the FBI or some shit? How the hell do you have a thing that scans fingerprints, Lexi?”
“I made it in my free time in comp lab.”
Ace nods as though that checks out, making Scottie actually look at me with frightened eyes. All I can do is make them back. I mean, I’m confident, but not enough to think I can somehow protect us from a girl who makes fingerprint scanners in her spare time.
“Do I need to give a blood sample too?” Julia asks as Lexi scans her hand.
Lexi is unfazed. “Don’t tempt me.”
“I’m Blake Boden,” Blake repeats for the second time as she moves on to scanning his hand. “Not sure if you heard my full name over the noise.”
“I heard you.” Lexi doesn’t even bother looking up in his direction as she pushes a button on the screen of her phone and drops his wrist.
“The name doesn’t ring any bells?” Blake continues, undeterred and desperate. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this before.
“Last year, you threw for a record 3,995 yards, completed forty TDs, and only had three interceptions,” she rattles off like it’s no big deal.
“Wait…what? You know my stats from last year?”
“I know everyone’s stats.”
Blake’s smile is sly and amused. “But you also know my stats.”
“I also know you lost in the second play-off game like a chump.”
Ace snorts so hard, Julia has to turn him around when snot flies out of his nose.
And Lexi just moves over to Scottie to get her digital signature for the NDA and take her fingerprints like she didn’t just deliver a life-threatening burn.
Blake, rather than looking offended, makes gah-gah eyes at her the size of Texas.
I offer my hand as Lexi gets to me and watch as she scans my print, and then I quickly scribble a signature on the NDA when she shoves it toward me on her phone. As soon as she’s done with me, she pushes back through the others and starts to walk down yet another dark hallway, rattling off information as we follow. “Computare Caterva is the most exclusive society on campus. No one knows we’re here. No one knows what we do. And it will stay that way. When we’re having an event, you’ll get a text. It will just say the time and where to be. Bring cash if you’re smart. Bring more cash if you’re shit at betting, so the rest of us can profit.”